


Death of a Moral Nihilist

by Lord_Turkish



Series: Dead Dimension Dreamers [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Doomed Timelines, Dream Bubbles, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:35:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lord_Turkish/pseuds/Lord_Turkish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do not go gentle into that good night.<br/>Rage, rage against the dying of the light."</p><p>The dream bubbles were never meant to have had any practical use after the game. They were useless. Didn't do anything but take up memory. So naturally, paradox space as a whole has a way of rebooting and clearing out the void, as to prevent any errant scraps of previous universes clogging up the order of things.</p><p>The dream bubbles are now being collapsed, much to the dismay of their inhabitants. </p><p>Some accept oblivion. Others desperately claw for a way out.</p><p>Eridan just wishes he wasn't so fucking attached to his dead counterparts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death of a Moral Nihilist

**Author's Note:**

> First and by far longest part of the current series I'm working on, Dead Dimension Dreamers. 
> 
> However by first, I do not mean it comes before the others chronologically. The two accompanying stories (Sleeper and Roxy Dreams of Dead Dimensions) serve as prequels of sorts. They do some foreshadowing, some character development, that sort of thing. Which is why I'm sort of haphazardly posting those along with this, because really the order in which you read these means jack shit. So go on, read to your hearts content.

**_“_ ** _Do not go gentle into that good night._

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light. **”**_

_-Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”_

* * *

 

Eridan bled from the left side first.

A dull ache would often accompany the blood, a slow-rolling pain that oozed from the folds of his gills. An ache which would manifest into a violet flare of bruises that collected along the dip of his waist and cloud over the skin of his lower back like a tempest blotting an otherwise clear sky. His spine would then crack like a thunder strike with a lightning flash of pain so bright it blinded him.

From there everything blended into a visceral slurry of "this really sucks and I would like it to be over now" until the long and arduous process of it being "over" began. Back snapping back in place. Abdominal muscles knitting back together. Guts having a series of heart-wrenching reunions that literally made him vomit.  Then he'd wish for it all to go back to the way it was before because at least that was a _manageable_ brand of excruciating.

Once he was whole again he'd promptly blot the experience out from his mind entirely until it came time for him to go through it all over again.

That being said, he had come to cling to these recurrent injuries. They were one of the few remaining constants in his existence; a buoy to latch onto amidst the fathomless bullshit that was the after-afterlife. Of course he hadn’t always been so fond of them. The tearing of his torso was traumatic the first time around, and repetition had not made the experience any more tolerable. Not to mention the copious amount of blood he would shed was a bitch to mop up and stained like a motherfucker.

In fact the first time Eridan relapsed he nearly died second time from shock.

The phenomena itself hadn’t been news to him. He had witnessed it twice before; the first as a startled bystander, the second as forlorn caretaker. He knew what was coming. However, for the longest time it was a mere eventuality. A distant something he need not worry about. Sure, he had seen others buckle to it but he had time on his side. Hell for all he knew he could have been immune altogether.

He wasn’t.

He was alone when he started to bleed. For a short while he frantically scrambled for support, someone to help ease the eventual transition in and out of corpsehood. Anyone would have sufficed, but he severely hoped Feferi would find it in her to spare some time.

She couldn’t.

In her defense, she hadn’t been aware of what was going on until after the fact. She had been off hopping bubbles with Nepeta in yet another doomed reunion mission, much to Eridan’s surprise. He had assumed she’d been with Sollux. It was a bitter assumption, but not an unlikely one. Either way Eridan interpreted as yet another installment to counterbalance his dizzyingly deep debt to her.

Not even his sleezy excuse of a dancestor bothered to stick around to help out. This left Eridan no choice but to rot alone in the hive they had shared for… well. Time flies when dead and dreaming. He didn’t blame them, or anyone else for that matter. Really, he didn’t. He knew he was one of the last trolls anyone would want to spend time with. The gash gaping open along the lower curve of his ribcage prevented him from assuming otherwise.

Afterwards Feferi stumbled across him and fussed over the aftermath. Nepeta and Sollux were also there, awkwardly hovering nearby as reluctant moral support.

_“Oh god I’m so sorry Eridan I—I had no idea! Oh you’re a mess I’m so sorry…”_

Hearing her apologize was a surreal experience for Eridan. Half of him wanted to reassure her. To tell her that, no, really, it was fine and he was the last troll she should be worrying about.

The other half tempted him to lay the guilt on thick and remind her who had been the one to nurse her while she vomited blood several weeks prior.

_It wasn’t Sollux, that’s for fuckin’ sure._

As much as he would have loved to claim that he had taken the high road out of a masterful show of self restraint, in reality it was Nepeta’s prowling presence which frightened him into playing nice.

Two sweeps had passed since then. The macabre recollections—recalls, they’d all come to call them—quickly proved to be a recurring event. In that time everyone had both other’s and their own symptoms memorized. Every cough, cut, and headache was boiled down to an exact science, every effort centered on damage control. Eridan also knew the best places to retreat to in case his few companions happened to be having an off day. He had become an expert at sweeping any and all discomfort under the rug.

Because obviously bottling up his turbulent emotions had worked so well when he had been alive.

Currently Eridan was suffering through his eleventh episode. The only shifting variable the recalls had were how often they cropped up, and in the past half a sweep it became obvious they were increasing in frequency. The most recent lulls between episodes had measured out to about a human month.

_“Eridan…” he didn’t have to look up to know what Feferi was referring to. The ache had already started. “You’re bleeding.”_

_“I know.”_

_“Your shirt—”_

_“I’ll make a new one.”_

_Sollux glanced up from his grubtop. “Your time of the month, Ampora?”_

_When Eridan’s fist met Sollux’s nose, the crack that filled the room was more than satisfying. Feferi shot him a sour look but regret didn’t come until he realized Sollux wasn’t getting back up._

_“Shit.” Eridan muttered when Feferi dropped to her knees at the collapsed troll’s side. He was seizing. The illusion of an older version of the musterdblood had peeled away in a blink, revealing the disturbingly young, six-sweep-old state death had actually left him in. Blood seeped from his eyes like tears and his mouth gaped open in a silent scream. Eridan knelt opposite of Feferi, helping her brace Sollux’s limbs. “Looks like it’s his time of the month, too.”_

_The look Feferi shot him could have culled an entire blood caste._

He braced himself right before the white hot pain flashed through him with a leg numbing crack. Perfect timing acquired through practice. The remains of his sheared gills gaped as his lungs flooded, and soon his breath was lost to the blood bubbling up from his mouth. At this point it was difficult for him to be alert to anything going on around him. Caretaking was an important part of recalls, especially in his particular case. He felt hands and the soft fibers of several towels pressed against him and he was lifted from the ground. Or maybe he had finally achieved unconsciousness. His head spun from blood loss, yet it remained perched at the wavering edge of dropping out of awareness. It had been shock that had killed him, not a nutrient-starved thinkpan. So he remained teetering on the borderline.

Another skill he learned was to suffer in silence. Corpses cannot speak, after all. As soon as the first grinning split cut across his side he would keep his lips sealed and do the best he could to keep his breathing steady.  Any attempt at words would only result in an excess of choking, his deadweight of a tongue drowning in a sea of violet. He snapped his jaw shut and accidentally nicked his tongue between his teeth. That injury would most likely keep with him past the recall and while he’d hate himself for it later, he was too preoccupied with the disorienting mix of memories and sensations fogging his skull.

The dead can dream. Eridan didn’t know what it was like for the others, but his were always nightmares. Not of his death or the terrible fates of those he held dear or other cliché horrors typically expected of a ghost. No, death was old news. Empathy was a bore. He’d long since been jaded to that shit.

His nightmares were of teeth.

Grinding of thin, chipping enamel and the sour taste of blood as one by one his teeth would drop from his mouth. Their jagged edges would split his lips every time he spat them out and when he’d reach down to pick them up he’d see how his nails were peeling off from the flesh of his fingers and they’d fall to the ground alongside the teeth. He’d try desperately to collect them, clawing without claws and knashing without teeth. Then tendrils would wrap around his neck like a noose and yank him back and the sharp scent of sea salt would knife down his throat moments before he was engulfed in its freezing waves. He’d twist and tumble at the mercy of an impossibly strong current, nocturnal eyes useless against the lightless black of the deep.

Occasionally fragments of this terror would creep their way into his recalls and he would obsessively dig his nails into his palms and press his otherwise useless tongue against the serrated edges of his shark teeth. It was a stupid fear to have. His teeth fell out naturally to make room for healthier, stronger ones to rise up from his gums. It was that way for all seadwellers. He guessed it was funny in a crooked kind of way. Of all the things to fret about—ceasing to exist, being abandoned, being further despised—his fucked up thinkpan decided on _teeth._ Not nearly as much of a looming terror as death was. However, since death was now less of a threat and more of a fact of his existence it didn’t do much to scare him anymore. So compromises had to be made.

Apparently, dental mutilation had become his new death.

Only one other person knew of this fear and he constantly beat himself up over it. Not that he harbored a particular dislike for who he had confessed to—she was one of the less shitty dancestors. It was more of the circumstances in which he’d poured his heart out to her. In fact he could have gushed to practically anyone and would still been disgusted with himself. Porrim—or anyone else—was no Feferi.

_"Incredible, the things said under an inking needle."_

But he would never bring it up with Feferi. Their interactions were strained enough as it was, and she had long since made it clear she was fed up with his spotlight-hogging bullshit. She had bigger fish to fry. She had taken every glitch that had come about in the dream bubbles personally, including the recalls. She was worried. She was stressed. The last thing she needed was Eridan bitching about some imaginary molars lost to the great grey deep.

Feferi didn’t smile as much as she used to. Obviously she didn’t crack a grin around Eridan, he had expected that, but even Sollux had mentioned she’d been uncharacteristically morose recently. Eridan wanted nothing more than to help. Made him wish he could repair the bubbles with a flick of his wrist and wrap her up in a blanket and tell her she’d done fantastically, that everything would be okay.

Everything would be okay.

_“Everythin’s okay with us, right chief?”_

The more he thought about it, the more it made his stomach churn.

Hope was supposed to be his thing. Like Life was Feferi’s and Doom was Sollux’s. Yeah, it’d been pointed out time and time again that his designation of prince nullified any positive factors hope had. Princes were the sort of ticking time bomb liability kept around only because an heiress pitied him and her red crush had shared a mind with him in the past and was, therefore, stuck with the misfortune of relating to him.

_“Fuck ‘em. You got me. You can only get me. You gotta thank me for that, y’know?”_

The cutting pain starts to nullify on the same side where it had begun. The recall was passing. Shortly he could feel the pin prick sensation of feeling return to his legs after a reunion between lower and top half so jarring, for a moment he only saw white.

Feferi’s pitying expression was the first thing he became aware of. She had a washcloth pressed to his lips as she offered a half-hearted smile. “Welcome back.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...yes, I went back and rewrote this first part before posting the next one. Blame it on perfectionism and a growing narrative. Also blame scene hog Cronus, he's eaten up a good third of the next part.
> 
> Also, fun fact: I chipped my tooth while writing this. I now know the fear of losing teeth. Or at least, I am familiar with how fucking annoying it is I mean really come on this is bullshit.


End file.
